PS100 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Academic Journal, Bringing Them Home, Stolen Generations
Developmental Psychology - Due Week 8
Review Question 6 (Submitted Answer): Stolen Generations: Indigenous Student/Teacher Identity
& Wellbeing
Submitted Answer: You are required to submit this Review Question as an assignment.
While the life expectancy gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians is around 10.5 years
(2009 ABS data), the largest deficit of any nation with a colonial past (e.g., New Zealand, USA, &
Canada), other factors also significantly impact many Indigenous Australians, particularly the large number
of children and adolescents as a result of historical policies and legislation in Australia.
The separation and forcible removal of children from their Indigenous families as well as the abuse many
experienced in missions, foster care, and other settings bestowed with the authority for their care, has been
argued as permanently scaring the lives of Australia’s Indigenous Community. Unfortunately, this harm
continues today in the later generations affecting both the children and grandchildren of those who were
removed forcibly.
For those who were separated and removed as children, their immediate experience worked to affect
their lives as not only children but also when they grew into adults.
Some of impacts were described in the Bringing Them Home Report: National Inquiry into the Separation
of Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander Children from their Families
(https://www.humanrights.gov.au/publications/bringing-them-home-stolen-children-report-1997 ) as:
• Separation from primary carer
• Mental and physical health problems
• Delinquency and behavioural problems
• Undermined parenting skills
• Loss of cultural heritage
• Broken families and communities
• Racism
The following is a quote from a women who lived from 5 months to 16 years in a girls home in the 1950s
and 1960s. Consider what this would have been like for this person, and then consider what impact this
would have on how she might raise her children and grandchildren. Or even how she interacts with other
members from her community.
I had to relearn lots of things. I had to relearn humour, ways of sitting, ways of being which were another
way totally to what I was actually brought up with. It was like having to re-do me, I suppose. The thing that
people were denied in being removed from family was that they were denied being read as Aboriginal
people, they were denied being educated in an Aboriginal way.
(Confidential evidence 71, New South Wales. Bringing Them Home, p. 203)
Unfortunately the impact of this history on individuals, families and communities continues and are many
and varied. These removal policies have been argued as effecting generations of Indigenous peoples.
Even those Indigenous children today who were not removed, have been impacted in a number of ways,
either as a community member, or as a child, grandchild, or relative of a parent or adult who was
removed.
Your task for this review question is to read your textbook (pp. 426-429), review the information in the
resource section, then explore the following question:
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Review question 6 (submitted answer): stolen generations: indigenous student/teacher identity. Submitted answer: you are required to submit this review question as an assignment. While the life expectancy gap between indigenous and non-indigenous australians is around 10. 5 years (2009 abs data), the largest deficit of any nation with a colonial past (e. g. , new zealand, usa, & Canada), other factors also significantly impact many indigenous australians, particularly the large number of children and adolescents as a result of historical policies and legislation in australia. Unfortunately, this harm continues today in the later generations affecting both the children and grandchildren of those who were removed forcibly. For those who were separated and removed as children, their immediate experience worked to affect their lives as not only children but also when they grew into adults. The following is a quote from a women who lived from 5 months to 16 years in a girls home in the 1950s and 1960s.
